Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/651

Rh HEGEL 617 or intelligent disciples. At Berlin Henning served to pre pare the intending disciple for fuller initiation by the master himself. Gans and Hotho carried the method into special spheres of inquiry. At Halle Hinrichs maintained the standard of Hegelianisin amid the opposition or indif ference of his colleagues. Hegel himself in his class-room was neither imposing nor fascinating. You sanr a plain, old-fashioned face, without life or lustre a figure which had never looked young, and was now bant and prematurely aged ; the furrowed face bore witness to concentrated thought. Sitting with his snuff-box before him, and his head bent down, he looked ill at ease, and while still speaking kept turning the folios of his notes. His utterance was interrupted by frequent hemming and coughing ; every word and every sentence came out with a struggle ; and if, when the right word seemed as if it would never come and no progress appeared to be making, the listener for a moment ceased to listen, he found when attention returned that the Iscture had reached a new stage, and the connexion was lost. And the style of these utterances was no less irregular. Sometimes in the plainest narrative the lecturer would be specially awkward, while in the abtrusest passages he seemed speci ally at home, rose into a natural eloquence, and carried away the hearer by the grandeur of his diction. Three courses of lectures are especially the product of his Berlin period : those on aesthetics, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history. In the years preceding the revolution of 1830, public interest, excluded from political life, turned to theatres, concert-rooms, and picture galleries. At these Hegel became a frequent and appreciative visitor. He even made extracts from the art-notes in the newspapers. In his holiday excursions, the interest in the fine arts is prominent, and more than once takes him out of his way to see some old painting. His letters to his wife are full of such topics. A visit to Vienna in 1824 presents him spending every moment at the Italian opera, the ballet, and the picture galleries. In Paris, in 1827, curiously enough, he heard Charles Kemble and an English company play Shakespeare. This familiarity with the actual facts of art, though neither very deep nor very historical, gave an unusual freshness to his lectures on aesthetics, which, as put together from the notes of 1820, 1823, 1826, are in many ways the most successful of his efforts. The lectures on the philosophy of religion are another application of his method to an important sphere of human interest. Shortly before his death he had prepared for the press a course of lectures on the proofs for the existence of God. In his lectures on religion he dealt with Christiinity, as in his philosophy of morals he had regarded the state. On one hand he turned his weapons against the rationalistic school, who reduced religion to the modicum compatible with an ordinary worldly mind. On the other hand he criticized the school of Schleiermacher, who elevated feeling to a place in religion above systematic theology. His middle way attempts to show that the dogmatic creed is the rational development of what was implicit in religious feeling. To do so, of course, philosophy becomes the inter preter and the superior. To the new school of Hengsten- berg, which regarded Revelation itself as supreme, such interpretation was an abomination. A Hegelian school began to gather. The flock included intelligent pupils who applied the method in different pro vinces of speculation, empty-headed imitators who repeated the catchwords of the new dialectic, and romantic natures who turned philosophy into lyric measures. Opposition and criticism, which were not wanting, only served to define more precisely the adherents of the new doctrine. The master himself grew more and more into a belief in his own doctrine as the one truth for the world. The system had grown gradually with him, and had assimilated intel lectual nutriment from every hand so as to make all history and all knowledge bear witness to its truth. He was in harmony with the Government, and his followers were on the winning side. Though he had soon resigned all direct official connexion with the schools of Brandenburg, his real influence in Prussia was considerable, and as usual was largely exaggerated in popular estimate. In the narrower circle of his friends his birthdays were the signal for congratulatory verses. In 1826 a formal festival was got up by some of his admirers, one of whom, Herder, spoke of his categories as new gods ; and he was presented with much poetry and a silver mug. In 1830 the students struck a medal in his honour, and in 1831 he was decorated by an order from the king. In 1830 he was rector of the university ; and on the tricentenary of the Augsburg Con fession in that year, he took the opportunity in his speech on the occasion to charge the Catholic Church with regard ing the virtues of the pagan world as brilliant vices, and giving the crown of perfection to poverty, continence, and obedience. One of the last literary undertakings in which he took part was to give his support to Gans and Yarnhagen von Ense in the establishment of the Berlin Jahrliicher fur Wissenschaftliche KritiJc. The aim of this review was to give a critical account, certified by the names of the contri butors, of the more important literary and philosophical productions of tlie time, in relation to the general progress of knowledge. The journal was not solely in the Hegelian interest ; and more tban once, when Hegel attempted to domineer over the other editors, he was met by vehement and vigorous opposition. It gave him besides a deal of trouble with sanguine authors, who looked forward to a favourable word from him as a passport to fame. The revolution of 1830 was a great blow to him, as to many other Germans ; and the prospect of democratic advances almost made him ill. His last literary work was an essay on the English Reform Bill of 1831, the first part of which appeared in the Prenssische Staats-zeitung. It contains primarily a careful consideration of the effects likely to come from the alterations in the electoral franchise, in relation, first, to the character of the new members of parliament, and secondly, to the measures which they may introduce. In the latter connexion he enlarges on several points where England had clone less than many Continental states for the abolition of monopolies and abuses. Survey ing with much intelligence of English circumstances the questions connected with landed property, with the game laws, the poor, the Established Church, especially in Ireland, Hegel throws grave doubt on the legislative capacity of the English parliament as compared with the power of renova tion and reform manifested in the more advanced states of western Europe. Much of the essay, unfortunately, has not become antiquated as a critique on the social state of Britain. In 1831 the cholera had first entered Europe. Ilegel and his family retired for the summer to a lodging in the suburbs, and there he finished the revision of the first part of his Science of Logic. On the commencement of the winter session, however, he returned to his house in the Kupfergraben. On this occasion an unseemly altercation occurred between him and his friend Gans, who in his notice of lectures on jurisprudence had recommended Hegel s Philosophy of Right. Hegel, indignant at what he deemed patronage, asked Gans in a rough missive to withdraw the note. On Friday llth November Hegel had lectured as usual. On Sunday he had a violent attack of cholera, and on Monday, the 14th November 1831, he was dead. He was buried on the spot he had wished for himself, between Fichte and Solger. XI. 78